


Of the home I once knew (tell me, is there anything left?)

by Amazaria



Category: One Piece
Genre: And maybe yours, Angst, Because Sanji's past, Brief Mention of Past Child Abuse, Every time I think about Brook's past I have the urge to break something, Fluff, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry for your eyes in advance, So I decided to break my heart, Technically I've re-read this but don't trust me, The ending is complete fluff because I love them, Then I remembered I can't handle sadness so, Will I keep on quoting songs at the start of my texts?, Yes and you can't stop me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-23 11:36:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16158200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazaria/pseuds/Amazaria
Summary: "Sanji is used to forgetting his friends' past. It doesn't matter, on Sunny, after all.But-It's never really gone, is it?"(or: in which Brook loses an old friend and Sanji comforts him.)





	Of the home I once knew (tell me, is there anything left?)

" _Sometimes I walk just to see,_  
_Who passes me by, passes me by._  
_Faces and places they go,_  
_Become things I write, things that I write._  
_Sometimes I feel like a ghost,_  
_Who longs for a life, longs for a life again._

_[...]_

_Sometimes I walk just to see,_  
_Who passes me by, passes me by._  
_Faces and places I've lost,_  
_All left behind, frozen in time._ "

                                     MyKey, Faces [(x)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk305w0M5QI)

 

 

It's late.

Sanji's freezing, even in a good coat and an almost empty cup of hot, warm, tea in his hands. They just left a winter island, but it feels like the cold has been there since forever. Nami said that they should escape it in three or four days, which is great because Sanji has nearly run out of marshmallows to put in hot chocolates.

It wasn't even a pretty island; the snow was melted and the town grey. He'd wandered around, accompanied by Chopper, trying to find a book on local specialties or interesting plants, and the only ting they'd managed to accomplish had been getting lost in the maze of identical grey, sad buildings.

(It had taken Nami two hours to find them again, and then she realized she had lost Luffy and Zoro.

Was Sanji  _glad_ he hadn't been there when their navigator managed to catch their captain and swordsman.)

Now that they're finally getting away from the island (they'd gotten out as soon as the log-pose had settled down, Captain's order), Sanji is starting to regret not searching more about the local cuisine. It's a thought he has each time they leave an island- what if he could have learned more?

It never really bothers him, because he'll come back when Luffy's King, anyway.

The tea in his hands is starting to get cold; he finishes it and wonders if he wants to go to sleep now or get another cup. Then something hits him, and he stills.

The night is silent; there's no other sound than the waves gently colliding with Sunny.

Sanji frowns. That's not normal. Brook's on watch, tonight; when their musician is on watch, there's always a soft melody playing- it's usually a variation of Bink's Sake, a song that Sanji has heard so many times he's pretty sure he should be sick of it.

(He isn't. He's pretty sure it's physically impossible to get sick of Bink's Sake.)

But Sunny's deadly silent; in a second, the lack of sound went from "comfortable" to "unsettling".

Sanji's first reflex is to check if there's any fog, any mist, the shadow of a cloud. But no, of course, there isn't; Nami is the greatest navigator ever, and she'd prefer give up all her treasure and cut down her precious tangerines trees before letting their musician be on watch on a foggy night.

This is a clear night; no clouds, no wind, no rain, nothing but the stars glinting far ahead and a sliver of a moon. It would almost feel like the world stopped moving, like he was in a dream, if the cold didn't give the air an edge that makes it impossible for him to believe he's asleep.

So why isn't there any music?

He makes his decision in less then a second.

Sanji turns around; opens the door to the kitchen, grabs the teapot that's still hot, grabs milk, two cup, and heads up to the crow's nest.

When he pushes the trapdoor to get into the crow's nest, he almost lets the tea hit the floor.

It's  _so cold._

It shouldn't be that way; Franky's installed a heating system in Sunny long, long ago. Sanji has a fleeting moment of anger directed at the stupid marimo. No doubt, he's the reason why it's so cold in there; must be a new training regiment against the cold that he's trying, and, as usual, the stupid swordsman didn't care about the rest of them freezing their ass off-

The thought vanishes as fast as it started existing once Sanji's eyes land on Brook.

It's not cold because of Zoro, or because Franky's heating system had a malfunction- oh, no. 

It's cold because Brook is there- as in, Sanji can literally  _see_ the cold radiating from him in waves.

( _The cold of the afterlife._

It's easy, usually, to forget that Brook watched his crew die, died himself, spent fifty years alone, only barely hanging to life because of a promise. It's easy, usually, to forget that Brook spent fifty years on a ship containing the  _bodies of his crewmates_ , alone, singing again and again the same song to keep himself from going crazy- or worse, giving up. It's easy, because Brook's so- lively. Always singing, always dancing, always playing. It's so _easy_ to forget what happened to him.

In this instant, Sanji knows he won't forget ever again, because this, right there- this is despair, plain and simple. This is overwhelming grief, all-compassing grief, that takes away a breath you feel guilty to still have, that brings so many tears to your eyes you feel like they'll never stop.)

Brook is kneeling by the window, on the floor. In the musician's hands is a broken violin.

 _Oh,_ thinks Sanji- or maybe he says out loud, because Brook's head turns towards him so fast that just looking at it makes Sanji feels like his bones are cracking.

(When Sanji's mother died, for a short period of time, Sanji wanted to forget it all. He wanted to forget his mother's smile, his mother's smiles, his mother's words, because she was  _dead_. What was the point? She was gone, taken, and seeing her at every corners of his home only hurt more.

Nowadays, it hurts how much he's forgotten. He _aches_  to remember what her voice sounded like and her favorite books. He knows she loved him, but- that's it.

He doesn't even have a photo of her. He can't picture the color of her eyes. He's- he has forgotten so much, and she was only  _one person._

And Brook- Brook lost an entire crew. There's so much he must have forgotten- so many pieces of his crewmates that must have slipped away from him, so many memories that must have faded away into nothingness.)

The violin Brook's holding, Sanji knows, is an old one. It was a leftover from the musician's past, something he carried with him when he first got on Sunny.

_And it's broken._

Sanji is used to forgetting his friends' past. It doesn't matter, on Sunny, after all; and even if it tries to catch up with you, Luffy will probably bury it definitely for you if you want him to.

(And even if you doesn't.)

But-

It's never really gone, is it?

And it comes back to hit you, sometimes.

Brook is watching him, now; they're staring at each other, the silence feeling a little too heavy.

Sanji wishes, for a second, that it was Luffy in his place, because his captain always seems to know what to say. There would be no prolonged silence if he was there; he'd have reacted the second he understood what was going on.

But- well, Luffy isn't there. Sanji is.

"- I was bringing you tea," he says quietly. "I- aren't you cold?"

Brook laughs- it's humorless, maybe a little hysterical.

(It's what you'd expect a living skeleton to sound like, and it's so  _wrong._

Brook's laughs are either soft and fond, like he's sharing with you a secret you can't quite understand yet; or loud, joyous, daring the world to ever try to hurt him.)

"- It's kind of you to worry, but I'm absolutely fine. I'm dead, after all!" He answers with a morbid sort of delight. "I don't feel the cold!"

 _I know that,_ wants to say Sanji.  _Of course I know that, but you seem heartbroken and- even if you're dead, wouldn't holding a warm cup of tea in your hands while it's cold outside be a nice feeling?_

"- It would be a waste to not drink it, now that I've made it," he states instead.

Brook turns towards him, still holding the broken violin in his hands. His attitude changes entirely; becomes more subdued. He shakes his head softly, then lets out a sigh.

"- I suppose it would, yes. I'd like a cup of tea, then, if you wouldn't mind."

He sets down the two broken pieces of the violin on the bench, stands up. He still look like a sad ghost, a disoriented kind of spirit, who got here by mistake. The pale glow of the stars, that barely emit any light, reinforces the illusion.

Sanji serves him a cup of tea, and then one for himself. It's not like he's planning to sleep anytime soon. Not anymore.

Brook takes it with a wistful smile.

"- I never liked tea that much, before," he says suddenly. "I didn't dislike it, per se, but I didn't... It didn't use to comfort me that much."

Sanji stays silent. Brook doesn't talk about his past much; the crew, as a whole, knows close to nothing about his former crew's life. If he didn't know better, Sanji would think Brook didn't think about them.

(But- every now and then, there's a heartbreaking rendition of Happy Birthday when he wakes up, and Nami, always the first one to wake up, smiles sadly at him.

Of course, it doesn't last long, and he's not even sure the heaviest sleepers of the crew know about it. But on days like this, Sanji always has tea available.)

"- I never liked tea that much, but my crewmates, oh, they did," smiles Brook in a tired but fond sort of voice. "They believed nothing couldn't be fixed by music and tea. But- well, I didn't really like it, so when I was sad, they couldn't offer me tea. Instead, when I got homesick, they'd lend me their instruments, since I didn't have my own, and they'd convince me to play a happy melody. But when even that ended up not being enough- when I just missed home _too much-"_  he says, and his voice breaks.

(Sanji wonders, for a second, if there's anything left of Brook's home.

Things must have changed; he's been gone for more than half a century, after all. Things must have evolved in  _something else_ , familiar but entirely different.

People must have lived; must have died. 

Sanji imagines, for a second, the Baratie changing, forgetting him, his home metamorphosing into something he doesn't recognize. Imagines Zeff being gone, the usual customers dead, Patty and Carne silent forever.

It might be more terrifying than being back with his family.)

Sanji almost reaches out, to put a hand on Brook's shoulder, to comfort him, but- something tells him that if he does now, Brook'll never finish his story.

(Brook's stories aren't  _rare_ , the way Zoro's or Robin's are; they just aren't spoken.

Sanji has learned a long time ago how to hear words in notes.)

"- They'd give me gifts," he whispers, and there are a million tears hidden in that voice. There's a hundred years worth of sadness, there's a hole that's been carved there by grief and regrets and loneliness. There's faded memories and questions that can never be answered. There's pain and longing; there's a monster becoming a familiar presence, in the most painful and slow way possible.

Sanji hates it, but he can't do anything about it. Nobody can.

"- They'd give me gifts," he says again. "And- we were pirates, so they couldn't- it wasn't much. A melody I liked. A new hat. Hot chocolate. But there was that one time, near my birthday, where they all got together and bought me-"

 _Oh,_ thinks Sanji once again.

 "- I'm sure Usopp can fix it," he assures quietly.

(He almost doesn't say it, doesn't dare put this kind of burden on the sniper's shoulders, because he knows that once he'll know what happened, Usopp will stop sleeping until the violin's repaired.

Because it will repaired; Sanji truly believes that there's nothing Usopp can't do once he puts his mind to it.)

"- I'm sure he can," agrees Brook, as used to expecting miracles from his crewmates as is Sanji. "It's just- well, this violin is quite old, all things considered. It might just be a waste of time to repair it."

(When Sanji was five, his mother gave him a book.

It wasn't much; just a kid's book, colorful and simply worded. It was so- so little, compared to what his siblings had.

But it meant the world to him. He read and read and read it over and over again, with his mother's help the first times, and then- well, alone. When he got locked up in the cell, with the mask, it was one of the few things he got to keep; he remembers reading it again and again and again, vision blurry with tears most of the time. He remembers one of the drawing getting a little damaged and him breaking down entirely. He remembers trying to repair it, asking his father and Reiju something to  _fix it_ , and them laughing at him for caring so much about a stupid book (even if Reiju did fix it, in the end, warning him to be more careful because it was the last time she'd ever do that.) He remembers staining the drawings with his tears, he remembers the colors fading little by little and him wondering how many time had passed since he last saw the sun. He remembers damaging it again, and again and again until it was barely a book, and still, still clinging to it because it was the last thing he had from his mother.

It was a stupid little kid's book, and when Sanji saw it in the hand of a kid in the Baratie, years after he had last seen his, he nearly broke into tears.)

Objects can mean so much; all over the crew, there are examples of that. Zoro and his swords, Usopp and his kabuto, Nami and her log pose, _Luffy and his hat_.

"- It wouldn't be a waste of time," he says quietly after a too long silence; Brook, who had begun to look at his precious violin with a resigned expression, turns to look at him.

Sanji meets his eyes and thinks of what he would do to have anything left of his mother.

"- It wouldn't be a waste of time at all, Brook. Gifts are meant to be cherished. They're important."

Brook stares at him for a moment, trying to understand the hidden meaning in Sanji's sentences.

"- Your tea will get cold," he says abruptly, not keen on letting him decipher what he just said. "You should drink it while it's still hot."

"- I should," agrees Brook distractedly, and takes the cup into one his hand, but does not drink.

Sanji hesitates to go back to sleep; it doesn't seem like he's needed anymore. Brook is staring at nothing, apparently lost in thoughts. The cold has slowly receded; a pleasant warmth has taken its place in the crow's nest. 

But he stays, because-

It surprises him, sometimes, how well he knows his crewmates. Not only in terms of cooking; he knows their taste, of course -what kind of chef would he be if he didn't?- but he's also able to decipher them pretty easily.

He knows a cup of coffee will always comfort Robin; he knows the way Usopp looks when he's beating himself up about Water 7. He can tell how Franky's feeling by seeing which one of his projects he's working on; he has memorized a long time ago the maps Nami stares at when she's feeling down.

He  _knows_ his crewmates; they're predictable, in a comforting and familiar way.

So he knows that Brook hates being left alone.

Not all the time; there are moments where's he's perfectly content to be left to his own devices.

But Sanji is used to serving Brook a cup of tea and chatting with him while preparing dinner, when the musician is sad. He's used to long silence that ends up with Brook looking up and looking infinitely grateful for Sanji's presence- for a chance to not drown in his memories.

So he stays, because a couple of hours of sleep mean nothing to him if one of his friends needs him.

(Because nothing matters, really, when one of his friends need him.)

.oOo.

Of course, like Sanji and Brook both knew, the second Usopp is aware of what happened, he promptly abandons everything he was doing to repair the violin.

Franky lends him Adam Wood to fix it, to which Brook protests strongly- protests ignored by everyone. The violin gets back to its former state in record time, and then Nami and Chopper take one look at Usopp and force him into bed.

Luffy grins, bright and proud, at Brook, his precious violin in hand, and an expression of bewilderment on his face, like he can't quite believe this happened. Their boy-captain laughs, happiness made into a sound,  _shishishishishi_ , and says, in a tone of voice that he rarely uses, like he's sharing the most beautiful secret he's ever had:

"- They're great, aren't they?"

And Brook answers, very softly, something like tears in his voice:

"- The greatest, Captain."

(Sanji makes Brook his favorite dish.)

**Author's Note:**

> If you're not writing about fictional friendships while you should be sleeping, what are you even doing with your life


End file.
